Luang Prabang is pretty laid back so excuse me for not having a vast amount to write up about the next two days! It’s so laid back that it’s nigh-on impossible to get a meal served in less than fifteen minutes, so if you happen to book a ticket for a trip make sure you have plenty of time beforehand to eat!

You can kind of guess by the above that I didn’t leave myself enough time. I thought half an hour would be enough to get a chicken fried rice and eat it. Wrong. It was almost 25 minutes before it was served and I had to leave half to rush back to the tour office. A shame as it was delicious!

The trip up to the Kuang Si waterfalls is 32km according to Lonely Planet. This should be half an hour in a tuk-tuk, but for some reason took us an hour. The driver told us to be back by 4:00 which meant we’d have 90 minutes to explore and frolic, while the tour office had told us two hours. So we told him we’d be back at 4:30.

Cost of entry to the well-maintained “park” is 20,000K and the tuk-tuk ride 25,000K per person. It’s a worthwhile trip for an afternoon out even if just for the large swimming areas. There are no pools in Luang Prabang and it does get hot and sticky. The water here is pretty clean and very cold! Lovely after you’ve tramped around the waterfall itself for an hour getting some lovely pictures.

An American chap and myself walked to the halfway-up point on the waterfall – the first “shelf”. From there, the views backwards are spectacular. We didn’t bother climbing right to the top and from what we were told by those who did, it wasn’t worth the effort anyway.

Back downhill a ways, we jumped into the aforementioned pool (me from the top of a small waterfall off very slippery rocks) and played on the rope swing that someone had tied up nearby. A word from painful experience – watch out for the knots on the rope when you jump. They have a habit of smacking you in places you’d rather not be smacked when you let go if you don’t shove the rope away correctly. Ooyah.

After an hour, we were all ready to head back into town. I’d got talking to a very nice girl on one of the other tuk-tuks called Roz (hey, Roz!) and we arranged to meet up later on for some munchies.

The trip back was a little quicker, I think mainly as it was downhill. We all had a good natter and I enjoyed a nice papaya shake from a street vendor with the American chap and Colin, a Malaysian guy now settled in Canada and on his annual trip in SE Asia after seeing the family.

As seems the law in Luang Prabang, I had a chill-out and waited until dinner time. I was supposed to meet Aurelie and Laura (who I met in Byron Bay) for dinner as well, but they were later arriving than they anticipated and missed Roz and I as we wandered off for food on the riverside.

Dinner turned to drinks. And more drinks. Then more. Then realisation that Roz didn’t have enough Kip. Then wandering around trying to find somewhere that would sell us more drinks. I think we might have crashed a private party asking if they had beer and they sold us some from their fridge.

By the time I dropped Roz off at her hostel it was around 2am. Whoops. A little later than we’d planned! Luang Prabang’s a little like that. You just kind of go with the flow.

Another night with little sleep (abed at 4:30am, awake at 8:00am) before rushing around packing everything, changing currency and scoffing some breakfast. I had to walk to another hostel where a tuk-tuk was to collect me to take me to the bus area on the old runway. In honesty, I’d have been as well walking to the bus – it was the same distance.

Just as the tuk-tuk departed, I remembered I still had my room key in my pocket. Whoops. I handed it to the guy at the hostel I was leaving from and asked him if he would return it to Babylon, which he agreed to do so. Then as we were approaching the bus, I looked out the back of the tuk-tuk to see Kam from Babylon bearing down on us on his motorbike! A rushed – noisy – conversation followed where I passed him the name of the hostel where I’d left the keys and he zoomed off to get them.

I’d been warned about this bus trip being a little rough, so I wasn’t too bothered about not having slept. I usually catch up quite well on these journeys. However, it didn’t work out that way.

The road up to Luang Prabang isn’t that bad as far as the surface goes. A little bumpy, but certainly better than it would have been 5-6 years ago. What hasn’t changed is the actual layout. The route follows old cow-tracks or something through the mountains and to say it meanders would be like saying a politician is ever so slightly dishonest. There were periods where the driver would turn the bus through 180 degree hairpin bends every 100m.

As such, sleep was difficult. It’s hard to relax enough to snooze when you have to cling onto your seat to avoid ending up in the aisle. Still, I managed maybe two hours’ shuteye on the six hour journey.

Finally in Luang Prabang, we were ripped off by the tuk-tuk at the bus depot (this always happens – it’s kind of expected as you’ve nowhere else to turn to) and got dropped off sort of in the right area. Ish.

I’d buddied up with the two Dutch girls I met in Vang Vieng, and we found the main road fairly easily. They opted for a guest house at $8 per room for the two of them. The joys of travelling on my own, I decided against the same cost for my single and looked along the street. I settled on the Bou Pha Guest House mainly as the old guy sat outside wasn’t hassling anyone to look at his lovely rooms. It was pleasant enough and $4 per night, which wasn’t going to break the bank.

After a much-needed shower, I headed out for dinner at a nearby restaurant I’d spotted while having a stroll. The food looked nice, the prices fairly keen and the wi-fi free. I’m such a sucker. I sat there for almost three hours and wasn’t hassled even once to order more than my main course and a drink. I did, however, have the same old man beg from me several times and more than one cute kid try to sell me trinkets. The staff were in no rush to shift them, but on the other hand a simple “no, sorry” and a wave sent them on their way. Thankfully they’re not as determined (or annoying) as their Indian cohorts.

Then, much too late again, to bed. I have two full days here so I need to make the most of them.

Very little sleep tonight, partly due to the availability of free wireless internet and partly as it took me over thirty minutes to fight of an invasion of flying ants – nature’s most stupidly-designed insects. There was a small gap between my room door and the floor and as soon as the light in my room was on they started to fly/crawl (upside-down) through said gap. I used about half a tin of insect repellant and a goodly portion of loo roll cleaning up the corpses.

Eventually to bed, waking at 9am and…

Sunshine! At last, the rain stopped – the day after a gazillion rockets were launched heavenwards to ask for more of the stuff. Fine by us and a large group of us donned swimming gear and walked round to the tube hire place.

Expensive thing 1: they’d put the price up since Friday when some of our group went for the first time. 40,000 Kip, plus the exchange rate on my dollar was sucky. Ah well. Still only around £2 for a day out. We collected our rubber rings, jumped into a tuk-tuk and were driven to the starting point a couple of kilometers away where we hobbled down a muddy walkway, chucked the aforementioned inflated doughnuts into the water and flopped lazily into them.

It’s harder work than it looks when the river’s calm and we paddled to the first stop where Beer Lao was on sale for the usual 10,000 Kip. After one of these I got up the nerve to go on the swing erected at the river’s edge. The platform from where I had to convince myself to jump was a whole 7m off the ground.

Grab swing, lean back, close eyes, leap, scream, splash.

Then repeat.

And again.

Fun!

Across the river was a flying fox run which was also proving popular, but I didn’t get a chance to swim across. Instead, after an hour or so we flopped onto our bums in the water and floated gently down to the next bar.

Expensive thing 2: I noticed my feet were bare. I’d left my sandals at the bar. Argh.

Expensive thing 3: I noticed my pocket was empty. Somewhere in 300m or so of water lies a fairly new Olympus 720sw camera with some really good pictures from today on it. Camera is insured via the credit card I got it with, but the pictures are irreplaceable – especially those of the other folks in my group who were relying on me to get snaps of them.

Still. Poop happens. I’ve emailed the insurance company and just have to figure out how I replace it. Hopefully this can be done on the road without having to return to the UK, but we’ll see.

This bar had a higher swing, maybe 10m up. Charlotte kindly donated a beer to the “get Iain drunk enough to jump off the thing” fund and I ws therefore destined to repay her.

Grab swing, lean back, close eyes, leap, scream (for much longer this time), splash.

Repetition was involved here as well. I think we stayed there for another hour or so as the sun baked down. There was an amazing field of butterflies next to the bar which was magical to watch – I wish I could have got a video of it. As people walked through, they erupted like intelligent gravity-defying snowflakes, then settled back to the ground again.

Expensive thing 4: My cash seemed to vanish somewhere, probably in the water as I was jumping off the swing. At least it was only 40,000 Kip or so. Not a huge amount but it meant relying on others for beer and tuk-tuk fares until we got back to the hostel. Thank you all and I hope I didn’t forget to return any money. If I did, there’s a contact link somewhere to the right!

The next bar was a small one, so we just sat in the shade – still floating in our tubes – and chilled for a while before moving on to the next bar with the biggest swing of the lot – maybe 15m in height. No more beers required by this stage!

By the time we set off, dusk was visibly approaching. It was after 5:30 and the rings needed to be back before 6:00 or we’d incur a fine. Our group split in two after half an hour or so. Some of us (myself included) jumped in a tuk-tuk near the end while the others continued right to the bottom. Bizarrely nobody asked us for our late fee so we legged it before they remembered to do so. The other group were asked, but just patted their pockets and said they had no money. This works every time, by the way.

So, time for a warm shower, some dinner (Mexican pizza – mmm) and off out for a few beers. We stopped at a bar where we bought a beer each and were rewarded with a free bucket of some rather scary spirits and ice. Nobody really wanted it so we used it as the forfeit in a drinking game. I played to lose, as ever. Unfortunately I was too good so everyone else got more of the free stuff!

Our group reduced in size again and five of us made our way to the Sunset Bar for a final beer, a natter and exchange of email addresses. Well, I dished out my cards – email me, people!

I finally crashed around 4:30am with an 8:00am rise to sort all my stuff out before catching the bus to Luang Prabang. I eased my aching frame into bed (hard work on the shoulders, and the inner elbows get some serious wear and tear on the tubes as you paddle) and zonked out in an instant.

The rather aptly-named Bun Bang Fai is an annual festival marking the move from dry to wet season. It’s an apt name as a large part of the festival, in Vang Vieng anyway, involves firing rockets into the air to wake the gods up and ask them for plenty of rain for the forthcoming rice-growing season.

This request is somewhat redundant right now as it’s not stopped raining in around 20 hours, but that doesn’t stop the fun. You know how your parents always told you now to play with fireworks? Well, these guys build their own. And I swear some of them are the size of ICBMs. One by one over two days, the rockets are carried up to a launching area outside of the town with great accompanying ceremony. A crowd of around ten people will surround the rocket, drums are banged, songs are sung and they will march up the main street to the Laos version of Kennedy Space Center.

There a competition is held and it’s one day you don’t go walking near the mountains. The challenge is to get your home-made high-explosive device to fly further than your neighbour’s. Scores of these things are let loose simultaneously and the skies darken like that arrow scene from 300 only with slightly fewer deaths resulting. Usually.

As I type up this section, a crowd from a nearby shop have just trudged past as has a bunch of teenagers with what looks like the world’s biggest rocket-on-a-stick. Where on earth they’re going to get a 25-foot tall milk bottle to launch it from, I don’t know.

*later that day*

OK, all festivals should require alcohol and high explosives in equal measure. Also, the entire world should take on the hospitality and generosity of the Laos, Vietnamese, Thai etc people. Yet again I found myself caught up with a bunch of locals heading off to celebrate something special to them. This has happened so many times in Asia (and Oz, and NZ, and …) that I have lost count.

We got a “lift” in one of the floats carrying a highly-decorated rocket. As payment we had to drink beer. Bugger, what a shame. We ended up doing a huge circuit around the town before being driven over to the river where the rocket launchings were taking place.

Guy Fawkes would have been embarrassed at this display of gunpowder-related weaponry. Hell, I think this is where Saddam Hussein “hid” the WMDs that the US couldn’t find. There was certainly enough firepower floating around the waterline here.

The rocket firings were more than impressive, even the ones that didn’t make it off the launch towers. Huge explosions of white smoke as ten people sat around the exhaust with their big signs saying who had made them. Mad. All of them. Like most SE Asians. And in such a great way!

Anyone who can spend a day getting drunk and launching plastic tubes into orbit (or into China depending on what angle the platform is at) is OK by me. Best of all, no month-long run-up where kids throw them at each other, no clampdowns, no need for “organised” displays… and no injuries. High explosives can be fun – if you’re country isn’t full of morons who don’t know how to handle them.